Beyond Evolution

"Grand Central Station. A pillar of New York City's architectural landscape. How many goodbyes and reunions had the building seen? How many movies had been inspired by love stories that begun in its hallowed halls?"

Sofia rolled her eyes. Derek was musing aloud from one of the tourist pamphlets he picked up as the both of them sat, waiting for Sofia's train to arrive. "It's just a train station, Derek," she told the older man, pulling her dark hair together and letting it drape over her left shoulder. Derek might have been her father’s butler, but after the time they spent together he felt like family; at least, the only one who cared to actually act like a caring relative.

Tossing a tennis ball from hand to hand, with her abilities making the ball fly back and forth in a yellow blur, Sofia swept a glance through the station. It was almost empty, as she predicted it to be. Taking the earliest train out had its perks.

She had imagined a dozen scenarios. All of them had to do with her at the new school, learning, doing well, making friends... None of them prepared her for the insecurity and shyness that accompanied it. What if she wasn't powerful enough, wasn't smart enough, what if her aerokinesis was a stupid power. I mean, she could fly a little bit off of the ground and hear whispers from afar, but that seemed to be about it.

"You're doing it again, Sofi," came Derek's gentle reminder.

( Her hair was starting to lift in the moving air, the tennis ball stilled and hovering near her right hand. )

(NARRATIVE OR OPEN TO COLIN; BACKDATED TO MONDAY MORNING)

10/1 - A ghost is roaming the school – it appears as an old man in a suit, and if you get its attention it will either run at you before dissipating, or have its face become twisted and horrifying before it screams and dissipates.

10/2 - The entire back half of the lawn has become a corn field. The scarecrow is hanging in the center of it. The corn is sinister in nature.

10/3 - Starting today, all future-readings (tarot, scrying, etc) by non-precogs come true, but scarily so. Think monkey’s paw twists on everything. Especially the good readings. All fortune-tellers feel an urge to do readings, which is very hard to ignore. Lasts until the end of the month.

10/4 - The school is under siege! Woodlands creatures of all kinds are making their way in and attacking residents of the school. They’re in medieval garb, and some can actually squeak-speak. Think Redwall. Except the school is, for whatever reason, the enemy.

10/5 - Sitting on the school’s stage is a Good Guy doll. It wanders the school at night. Sometimes armed. This lasts a week, until he disappears.

10/6 - The school, essentially, turns into its own version of the Winchester House. Doors to walls or to sheer drops, stairs going into brick walls, trap doors, secret passages, skylights in the floor, and so on.

10/7 - Colin’s body takes on the features of a gourd-pumpkin. Stems for fingers, orange ridged shells over his arms, a few pumpkins stacked up for his core and chest, hair turned into green spiraly offshoots. He has his same head, barring the fact that he now has the top of a pumpkin on his head like a hat, except that his nose is now triangle-shaped, and instead of regular teeth he has two large in the top of his mouth, and one large at the bottom. He is also now capable of spitting pumpkin seeds. This lasts a full day.

St. Catherine’s didn’t look like a bad place from the outside. In fact, it looked relatively mundane. A cluster of mid-sized buildings on an expansive bit of rural land, it wouldn’t have really been noticeable except for the big ten foot chain link fence that surrounded a couple of acres. Upon closer inspection it was easy to spot the occasional Sentinel dog patrolling the interior fence line clearly intent on alerting to the presence of mutants.

Not the ones on the outside, but the ones on the inside.

The X-Men knew what was going on, and they’d vowed to stop it. Now, in the early evening, the Blackbird soared through the air and hovered over the fence line. Either dropping down from the belly of the ‘Bird, or appearing on the ground in a vibrant purple tear from Blink’s teleportation, they swarmed the grounds.

Those that ran the school weren’t trained soldiers or even a militia. No, they were those that had volunteered or been hired to work with their charges. But to make up for their lack of training they had their faith—their zeal—to guide them, and a knowledge that what they were doing would be frowned upon here. The school couldn’t be taken, the children must remain in the light. Others simply panicked. All at once a whooping air raid siren thundered across the property, and ( things descended in the bedlam. )

[ OPEN TO X-MEN & ST. CATHERINE’S STUDENTS ]

No headers from us this time, just put in the subject line roughly when it is, if you want to!

Midday, multiple portals are going to open up and a great deal more of the tentacle monsters come out than came out originally. Along with them are ten of THESE things, who seem to be the ones in charge. They are capable of paralyzing anyone that meets their eyes, summoning elements, and forcing the opposite side to fight each other instead of the bad guys. Most dangerously though, they also have the capacity to use their central eye to project a field that cancels the effects of all mutant abilities within a cone of 150 feet in length around them.

There will be a post going up soon for non-team members to talk on, but the entries there don’t count towards activity. On that note, keep in mind that only posts happening before midnight will count for activity this month (that's why this is going up so early!).

Enjoy!

You know what to do!

WHO: Brian Braddock and Colin Hume
WHERE/WHEN: A bench on the grounds; late tonight
WHAT: Someone has had a little too much to drink.

( He was British. His willpower in regards to staying proper was quite impressive. )

WHO: Morgan Jones and Colin Hume.
WHEN/WHERE: One of the residents kitchens.
WHAT: Morgan's powers go into effect.

( Colin silently admonished himself a lot. )

The ground was damp with frost and the early morning breeze was sharp and chill but Colin was sitting on the grass anyway, his knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around them. Jacko, reanimated for the festive period, was perched behind him at a respectful distance, viney arms tracing circles in the earth. Before Colin, maintained with the dignity and respect they deserved, was a spread of carefully etched markers, bearing names of people he’d cared for, children he’d taught, faces from the halls of the school, strangers he’d never met but whose names were legend. The marker right in front of him was the one he couldn’t tear his gaze away from.

( Mark Sheppard, it read. The letters were simple. Clean. Stark. )

[ NARRATIVE | CLOSED ]

Jacko had woken up three days ago. The thin, curled vines which acted as his arms and legs had slowly unfurled overnight and Colin had been there to welcome him when his small pumpkin ‘body’ had come to life, lifting up to stand unsteadily and look around at the room which welcomed him every time a holiday rolled around. Colin had forced a smile onto his lips. The muscles in his cheeks ached from disuse. Jacko had lifted a vine to wave to him but he’d been hesitant, tentative.

( He knew straight away something was wrong. )

[ NARRATIVE | CLOSED ]

((TW: Discussion of grief, death and suicide.))

( He’d thought it would be easier once Kieran left but it wasn’t. )

[ NARRATIVE | CLOSED ]

( At least he’d been in private when he saw it so nobody had been there to witness the worst moment of his life. )

[ NARRATIVE | CLOSED ]

WHO: Raj Dhanial and Colin Hume
WHERE/WHEN: The art rooms; Massively backdated because I got poorly so takes place a few days after Angelo's death
WHAT: Raj is ferreting for art supplies when a well-meaning Colin appears

( I didn’t take anything. )

WHO: Kurt Wagner (NIGHTCRAWLER) and Colin Hume (WINDSHEAR)
WHERE/WHEN: Colin's room; Backdated to yesterday evening
WHAT: Fueled by a glass or two of wine, Kurt and Colin discuss the toll it takes to be an X-Man.

( It had been gruesomely intimate, this grave sin he had committed. )

Raj was terrified. He couldn’t even tell where he was. There was concrete against his back, and a bench that he was sitting on, but that was all he knew. His eyes had been covered tightly by strips of cloth, and his mouth had been likewise bound. It wasn’t necessary. He had no idea what he could do, the extent of his powers. His whole arm ached from his shoulder being dislocated and not re-set, and he was feeling dizzy -- he’d been hit in the head by the butt of a guard’s gun to get him to stop trying to talk. He felt nauseous. It wasn’t only physical, the mental toll this had all taken on him was incredible; he still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, but he knew that he was in trouble now. Something bad was going to happen. And, worst of all, he didn’t know where Nas was. They’d been separated at the jail, and shouting for him had only resulted in violence from the guards to get him to shut up. Before his eyes had been covered he’d seen them wearing noise-cancelling headphones, and his mind still couldn’t process why.

His fingers flexed, his hands feeling numb from being cuffed behind his back. Shit shit shit… He knew that he shouldn’t have done what he did, that he could get in trouble for his drawings, but he didn’t know why it had gotten so bad. Why he and Nas had been swarmed, why people were grabbing and hurting them. He’d never seen anything like it. His parents were going to be so angry. Whenever he got to see them, at least -- being arrested was a bad sign. His mind kept running around in circles -- maybe this was a mistake, maybe there was some way to explain all of this, maybe they could be let go with only a slap on the wrist.

He really didn’t want to think about what he’d heard all of the guards saying. Mutants. They couldn’t be. There was no history of it in their family, and they’d done nothing wrong to bring it on themselves. Nothing of what he knew pointed to them being najas. It had to be a mistake.

And that scream that had come from Nas...

When he heard something out in the hall his attention was pulled immediately, but he bit down on the gag to stop himself from making a sound. He didn’t want to be hit again. Instead he tried to listen, to hear if it was something to do with Nas. Maybe they would let his brother go. Even if Raj had done something wrong, his twin was innocent. He heard shouting then, and the sound of a gun, and he immediately started pulling at his restraints again. He had to get out of here.


(Open to Nas/X-Men!)

Halloween! At precisely 8:00 PM everyone turns into their costumes. You can interpret this how you want: powers or no powers, knowledge of the school or thinking they're transported from an entirely different world, evil or good, etc etc! Everything will go back to normal at the stroke of midnight, and any injuries sustained will reverse themselves. The gym and part of the grounds have been converted to a haunted house/tunnel/yard/whatever, which will also turn into an actually haunted place.

Threads can be normal-sized or RFS thanks to some special requests! Feel free to tag with a subject of RF if you want! OR DON'T, IT'S A FREE COUNTRY!

Colin’s dreams were stark, loud things, vast and inescapable between the walls of his mind. It wasn’t how he might have imagined this experience to be, no silent sea of darkness encompassing him as the seconds slowly ticked by. His synapses wanted to fire even if they weren’t yet capable of running images which made sense, and his body wouldn’t allow him to wake from the dreamscape encasing him, suspended in the mud of his subconscious.

Selene was there, a spectre in his thoughts. She writhed before him on a bed of shattered crystals, giant, skin pale like a corpse, black hair slithering worm-like across her flesh, grin like a knife slash. She saw him, frozen there before her and unable to move, unable to act, unable to stop her, and she laughed. It was ever-present in his nightmares, that laugh, a laugh he wasn’t sure he’d even heard in the real world, a jagged staccato drumming over the constancy of chanting, building and building towards a crescendo that he knew in his heart would break everything. He had to stop this before that happened but he didn’t know how and the grandfather clock pressed up against his back wouldn’t stop ticktocking, a gong primed to strike. In the distance, a house was ablaze. He could feel the heat from the flames. Family inside, family dying. Something was pressing down on his shoulders, voices whispering desperate slurs in his ears, asking him why he wasn’t there, why he let this happen, why he didn’t save them.

He had to look up to see the light. It was a glow, a dim pinprick smudge at first but over time it had grown like the sun, its brightness burning cracks into the Dali landscape of his dreams, robbing them of their strength, dulling their power. Celluloid melting. The light in the sky had his attention now and he could feel himself in motion, arms numbly grasping at the shine, legs kicking to shunt him closer to it. It seemed so welcoming and it was only at the last second that he realised how harsh its edges were, how solid, too real. He passed through it in dread.

In the real world, in the hush of the medlabs broken only by the occasional muffled sound of a machine clicking or a screen beeping, Colin’s finger twitched, the ring finger on his right hand. First it tensed, then a few seconds later it lifted, a smooth motion up, then down. He wanted to open his eyes but his lids felt so heavy, like they’d been stuck down with glue, making it an act beyond him. Instead he tried to swallow, sandpaper tongue too thick to let him gulp down, throat resisting him. It hurt, everything hurt, a lattice of pain emanating from the core of his brain. It felt like he’d been stabbed there. Is that what happened? Did Selene stab him, did she stab him and laugh? He could still hear her chanting. She was lying on top of him, her full weight crushing into his prone body, her chant scraping her dry lips on his ear, her broken nails scratching. Was that real? No. No? He couldn’t get his head to work properly, couldn’t mash his thoughts together so he could comprehend them.

Fright made his mouth creak open, his voice empty when it came, like dust, more ghost than man. “Mark?” Of course that would be the only word on his lips.

[ MARK ]

The X-Men had managed to break through Selene’s outer barriers and in to where Proteus himself was hiding. It was then that he was taken out, swiftly, and his control over the various minds here and elsewhere ended. The compound was simple enough, and not too many turns later they found Selene herself, still involved in her ritual.

“But how can you focus on me when your home needs so much help?” An image in all of their minds suddenly, of the school and the chaos and slaughter that was happening there. The teams started to disperse immediately, the stopping of Selene and her crystals left to a trusted few.

The others teleported out, landing back on the grounds in the midst of the fight. They weren’t the only ones arriving, though. In the front hallway of the school, the time-travelers that had been taken a year ago were dropping back in place as though no time had passed for them at all. And outside something strange(r) was happening -- black, whirling portals were beginning to appear, and out of each fell a stranger. Portals were opened up near some of the current residents as well, sucking them in.

(Everyone’s here! Wait for thread titles and then go wild)

As the special team landed in Muir, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Moira hadn’t been expecting them, but she hadn’t had a part in the visions so it was thought that there was no need to worry her unnecessarily. No one’s visions regarding this had given them reason to believe that her home and labs would be involved or affected. Maybe they should have said something, but if there was any chance they could keep her out of it, that was what they wanted.

Too bad, in the end, as she might have been able to offer some kind of defense for what the group was about to endure.

Proteus, again. This time appearing before them as a glowing being made of energy. Before they could do anything though, he’d grabbed hold of their minds. Altered the very reality they were existing in, turned it to one where the X-Teams were the enemy, and one that they had to stop at all costs. When they were ready they were teleported to Utopia, the small island that Selene had taken over for what she needed to do.

She accepted the dagger with no small sense of glee, turning to leave with it. She had the summoning to see to, and the assembled team before her was about to have visitors.

Portals opened and the X-Men, X-Force, and the Exiles stepped through,with Selene’s team waiting for them with red, glowing eyes. She didn’t care if they all massacred each other -- she just needed them occupied until she had finished ascending.

(Brainwashed vs X-Men/Force and Exiles!)

Hope Lee knew how to throw a party.

A more relaxed than stately affair had the guests mingling in a larger ballroom, but had run of the entire ground floor. There was music, food, and good company. Hope Lee hadn’t only invited her niece’s friends, but seemingly a grand deal of people. Neighbors. Some minor celebrities that lived around Beverly Hills. Business leaders. Someone running for a state position in government during the next cycle. Those people’s family and friends. Chances are Hope was getting something out of each attendee even if it was only a connection; Hope Lee was charismatic, knew how to be open-handed when it mattered, and was a skilled networker. People brought others that they assumed she’d want to meet, and the guest list was hardly enforced. The more the merrier, it seemed.

That’s how they infiltrated easily. It wasn’t difficult in the slightest, but even if it had been they were well trained, highly skilled. There was a mission, and they were here to fulfill it without hesitation or concern about collateral damage. Such was their mandate. Some were dressed as business people, one as young, ‘hip’, twenty-sometimes that could have been friends of the target’s niece. No matter what they wore they wouldn’t have stood out more than the ‘weirdo’ covering his face in all black standing off to the side looking uneasy.

It was the Jade strike team. One of several utilized by their consortium for overseas missions involving high-value, dangerous targets.

Their leader was a man in his sixties, fit with graying hair, and dressed as a business executive. He tapped a mic hidden in his cufflink to signal that they were starting soon. The target was speaking to someone, laughing merrily, while accepting a drink from her stately butler.

A double tap of the comlink and the signal was sent. The first shot came from a woman in a flowing red dress whose wrist had opened, and then a pistol unfolded. The shot rang out before anyone could react; that was the benefit of having their bodies literally built to be their weapons and gear. Bodies collided, and people screamed. Blood splattered from kinetic force and pooled out on the ground. There was a stunned second as the majority of the guests reeled to figure out what happened, and then — the party broke down into chaos, and Jade’s heavy hitters with all their augmentations and moved in, weapons and other abilities primed.

Whether Athens had missed or the target had sacrificed someone else instead, the butler — Brad — lay dead on the ground.

“Find her,” London commanded, nonplussed, but already scanning the crowd with the systems in his eyes. Things had turned out far more interesting than he anticipated, but knowing who their target was they ought to have known that.

[ OPEN TO THOSE AT THE LEE PARTY ]